Drug adverts

In the UK, you don't use particular (medical) drugs because they've been advertised to you. In fact, I'm not sure they're even allowed to advertise prescription drugs - just over-the-counter ones. You go to your doctor, he diagnoses you and prescribes something suitable. In the US, a large proportion of the ads on telly are for drugs (most of them are for cars) - and they're really quite odd.

So, an advert will begin with someone looking horribly ill in some way, before the voiceover extols the virtues of their particular panacea. Then, in the final seconds of the ad, they run off a litany of side-effects that may or may not happen to you, presumably because they're legally required to. I think they must employ special people to do these bits, because the speed with which they talk is superhuman. You try saying "rare side effects may induce nausea, vomiting, cancer, brain damage, broken bones, and low self esteem" in 3 seconds with any kind of clarity, and you'll get the idea.

I was spurred to mention this by an ad just now for an anti-depressant called Cymbalta. Apparently it treats both the mental and physical effects of depression, but can have it's drawbacks. You are advised to "contact your doctor if you notice changes in mood, behaviour or suicidal tendencies". It continues "Has been known to produce suicidal feelings in children and teens, and is not recommended for those under 18". Not sure how this ad would make someone want to take this stuff. Weird.

Down from the mountain

I'm in Asheville, NC today. Primarily I'm here to see Matthew Ryan, one of my favourite singer/songwriters who's playing a rare gig here tonight. The place had been recommended to me though, so I came a few hours early to have a nosey around.


And it is lovely. Asheville is about a 2 hour drive from Charlotte, nestled in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. It's a pretty small town with a distinctly bohemian and even urban feel - all tie-dye and busy coffee shops of bright young things. The old town center, unlike Charlotte, is still very much the bustling centre of the place and the cobbled streets around it are bursting with interesting (and mostly independent) shops. The one of most interest to me was a record shop, specialising in "mountain music" (bluegrass essentially) but which was rather incongruously blaring Lily Allen on the stereo, singing her songs about Tescos and orange squash. I was confused for a moment, but came to my senses enough to browse around the incense haze and buy a couple of suitably old-timey albums.

Another major feature was an old-style Woolworths (with it's full title, F.W. Woolworth & Sons) - featuring a fifties-style soda fountain and considerably more classy than its English counterpart. I had a hot apple cider (which isn't alcoholic over here - pretty much just hot Copella apple juice) in a bookstore cafe. Apples seem to be something of an obsession round these parts - the roads around Asheville are lined with orchards where you can pick you own, like a massive version of the Cox orchards around Sandringham. They were all pretty much shut up until autumn though - this must be a hard time of year for all those apple growers...

Sunday Night Ramble

Okay, I don't have anything in particular to go on about tonight but I'll have a bit of a ramble anyway. It's been a week of transatlantic tennis - I was in London at the beginning of the week, Boston (finally!) at the end, and now I'm back in Charlotte for the next few weeks.

London was great. Mostly work-oriented, but I managed to have a proper Sunday lunch with friends, go to the Snooty Fox, and catch up properly with workmates in a way I couldn't really at Christmas because everyone was all over the place. I was in the office for three days, and each night involved some boozy chew-the-fat action, which was great.

It was a real relief to get back to Boston. Having spent so little time there since Christmas, the whole "build a life in Boston" thing has pretty much gone out of the window. I've not been in contact with a few of the people I was hanging out with in my first couple of months, though I'm not too bothered as some of them (to be quite honest) weren't particularly interesting anyway. There is one person who I still see every time I'm in town though, one of the girls from the original speed-dating. I keep waiting for her to invite me to some sort of wider social gathering so that I can meet some of her friends, who would hopefully be as cool as her. Doesn't seem to be forthcoming though.

So Boston is kind of on hold for now. My fridge is utterly devoid of food and most of my clothes are here in Charlotte. Things are kind of in a holding pattern while I wait for us to set-up a proper office and a couple of people to join me, which will probably be in March sometime. It'll be cool to have someone to go and have a stress-free pint with without having to get on a plane to London! It was cool to be there for a couple of days and experience a bit of the Boston winter though. The Charles river was actually frozen over - quite a sight! It snowed pretty heavily on Friday night, and the next morning the walk to the shops was utterly treacherous. A walk that usually takes 10 minutes took about 20, since I had to tiptoe on the ice all the way to keep me from making a spectacle of myself. The streets were pretty deserted - clearly people tend to hibernate when conditions become so unconducive to sauntering down the street.

So, back to Charlotte, and someone I'm working with here has fixed up a lunch for me tomorrow with some of her friends who she seems to think will be my kind of people. We shall see, but it'd be cool to have some people to hang out with here.